Chapter 1212: Chapter 52: Rebirth
The rough hemp rope connected everyone, leading them to the final destination of this journey and the end of their lives, the gallows.
“Please let me go… I won’t bring trouble to the Refuge, really, please believe me, I won’t betray humanity…”
The young A Lun pleaded sadly, mixing with the cries around him.
He didn’t know whether to hate the ridiculously cheap food or the polluted meat sold by heartless merchants.
The soldiers, as cold as their armor, ignored the people’s pleas and led them to the gallows, where A Lun had once cheered, then became silent, and finally empathized with the surrounding sadness.
Those past selves stood around the gallows, doing the same thing as the past selves.
As the cold noose touched his neck, A Lun shivered with goosebumps from the fear of death as if it were cold.
“I am human… I am not polluted…”
The mutter-like plea had become a subconscious act for A Lun.
“I curse you! It won’t be long before you executioners are hanging up there too!”
But there were also those who became hysterical from extreme fear.
The ten infected beneath the gallows’ nooses quickly stood in place. Just as life was about to conclude, a team of Knights hurried over from afar to save them.
“The Mayor and the Exorcist ask that they be sent over.”
The Knight presented an order signed by Matthias, rescuing the ten who nearly got hanged and brought them, along with nearly a hundred others suffering from low Sanity Value syndrome and Polluters, to the Inner Ring.
“Where are we being taken?”
“Maybe to be used as forced labor… I heard some nobles are doing this…”
“We should find a way to escape…”
But those who heard the knights’ voices said, “I heard them mention the Exorcist.”
“I heard about the Exorcist too… Are we being sent to the Land of Light?!”
“How could such good fortune happen…”
The Knights did not stop their whispers, leading these people, who were drawing unusual gazes, to a park located in the Inner Ring, a cave slightly smaller than the core cave.
The Knights then revealed the reason for bringing them here: Lu Li and his allies had arrived at the Vena Refuge. He pitied these poor souls who would be exiled or killed, offering them a chance to become Believers of the Twisted Shadow and attain rebirth.
“What if one doesn’t want to become a Believer?” someone asked.
“Go back to where you came from,” answered the Knight Captain in charge.
“Can we return to our homes?!”
“Back to the gallows.”
“Will the Exorcist take us back to the Land of Light?” someone else asked.
The once-nearly-hanged individuals awaited expectantly for the Knight’s response.
“Yes.”
Then this was no longer a choice, especially upon learning that becoming a Believer did not erase one’s consciousness.
“My wife is also about to sprout deformed limbs, can she come along?” someone wanted to bring their family.
The Knight Captain nodded, motioning to a team member, “Follow him back to his residence to bring them.”
A Lun had no family, so like most people in the park, he queued up in front of a newly erected shelter.
“Is the Exorcist really here?”
The ragged young person behind him spoke to A Lun.
“I don’t know…”
A Lun shook his head, searching alongside him for that legendary figure of “black hair and black eyes.” And then he really saw it—
As if glory and light focused on him, a clean middle-aged man, a young woman, and a cloaked silhouette surrounded him.
A Lun guessed that was the Mayor, Anna, and the Twisted Shadow.
But soon, the surrounding chatter corrected his mistake: the young woman was the saintly form of the Twisted Shadow, and the cloaked silhouette was Lu Li’s companion, Ophelia.
The twisted figure entered the shelter, and the first resident followed in.
People gazed and waited. Minutes later, a terrifying figure, as if walked out from the deep sea, appeared at the door.
Four tentacle-like soft appendages were stacked and squeezed into his pant legs, exposed skin became deep and smooth, his nose regressed into flat thin slits on his face, and small whisker-like cilia undulated on his jaw.
This first transformed Believer served as a “demonstration,” he walked through the line, conversing with the fear-gripped people.
“Will we become like this?”
“Yes…”
The wet, clammy Believer responded, his voice gurgling like he spoke with water in his mouth, and when nearby, one could hear a tidal-like sound within his body.
“I feel the power…”
The Believer extended his webbed hand, with a semi-transparent membrane connecting the knuckles, as clean water invisibly emerged, mucky like mud oozing thickly in his palm.
“And… I am still me…”
Everything that happened to him felt like a dream, even the terrifying appearance softened.
Others remembered they were allies of the Exorcist, residents of the Land of Light… becoming this form seemed not difficult to accept.
Becoming a Believer might not be so bad…
More and more residents entered the mysterious shelter and emerged as tentacled Aliens, and occasionally, someone who went in did not come out. A Lun guessed that unlucky soul failed.
Praying he would not fail, A Lun watched the transformed people, trying hard to get used to this appearance.
The queue behind him grew longer; when there were only a dozen people before A Lun, more people had come to the park to become Believers than at the start—
From the Outer Ring, the Inner Ring, residents tormented by low Sanity Value syndrome and aberrations received the notice, choosing to believe in this matter because of the Exorcist’s reputation, and came here.
He even saw the Knights Order driving out some people from the line behind—those were healthy and unpolluted individuals.
They wished to use this as a means to the Land of Light.
Drawing ever closer to the mysterious transformation shelter, A Lun lifted his coat corner, tucked the cilia growing on his abdomen into the tightly tied waistband. However, a passing Knight stopped him.
“Expose it, no aberration will be driven away.”
“Oh oh…”
A Lun obeyed blankly, not only failing to hide the cilia but making it more conspicuous.
But the others around him did the same, exposing their aberrations, while those with low Sanity Value were anxious, worried they’d be cast out as normal people.
It seemed everything in the park had turned upside-down: normal people became the rejected…
Only a few people remained ahead, A Lun excitedly thought about what he would say to the Exorcist, he saw many talking to Lu Li, and Lu Li responded to them.
Only to his regret, as it was nearly his turn, the Exorcist left the park with the Mayor.
“Next.”
The Knight Captain maintaining order spoke outside the shelter.
“Name.”
“A… A Lun… No last name.”
“Go in.”
Nervously, A Lun entered the shelter, the wooden door closed behind him, welcoming him into the shadows.
As fear struck in the sudden darkness, a gentle presence emerged from ahead, like being embraced in the warm arms of an unseen mother…